Chapter 3
Since yesterday, Salem hadn’t been able to get Quinn out of his mind.
He’d tossed and turned the previous night, thinking about their unexpected encounter.
Her wavy red hair and seafoam-green eyes were a remarkable combination, and he wondered if his attraction to her was why he hadn’t left her on the side of the road.
During the car ride, she switched off the radio and sang.
He didn’t mind since she had a pleasant voice.
Not a professional one; sometimes she hit the wrong note and then laughed.
They played a game where they each had to name cities starting with a letter of the alphabet—a game he enjoyed and won.
Joy used to sit quietly in the car with him, whereas Quinn engaged him in conversation.
Why am I comparing her to Joy? he thought a day later, sitting still in the quiet car before opening the door.
It seemed absurd since he and Joy were never in a relationship—not a real one.
They pretended to like each other so Joy would have a secure place to live and have her baby.
Yet being in that fake relationship kindled something unexpected in Salem—a feeling of duty and responsibility.
Though he’d never loved Joy, he had once offered to be her mate for real.
Partly guilt for having played a role in the lab experiments that resulted in her pregnancy, but another side of him yearned for a close bond with a partner, someone he could confide in who understood him.
Physical intimacy was the only type of connection he’d ever experienced with women, but he often wondered what an emotional bond was like.
Quinn’s living conditions bothered him. Though she kept a tidy house, most of the space was devoted to her work.
Everything was outdated, and the landlord had done a piss-poor job at simple repairs, leaving it all to her.
Did she realize she needed new gutters? Her bathroom was as big as a phone booth, and she didn’t own a vehicle.
To be fair, neither did he, but he could borrow one from a packmate whenever he needed it.
Still, her living alone concerned him. There were a lot of nutjobs out there, even in the established packs. She didn’t have friends or anyone who visited her regularly. That made her vulnerable to harassment or even some psychopath snatching her up. Who would even notice she was gone?
Salem shut the front door and took off his sweater.
“Salem!” Atticus leaned forward from where he and Joy were lounging on the living room sofa, a fire crackling in the fireplace. Violet appeared to be sleeping inside the playpen, and Joy was knitting. “Are you heading upstairs?”
Salem nodded.
Atticus rose from the leather sofa and ran his hands through his pale hair.
While Salem wasn’t sure he’d ever understand why Joy had chosen a Vampire over a Shifter, Atticus loved her and that baby like no one else, lavished them with affection that Salem could’ve never given.
Now he understood Joy and her child deserved more than just stability—they deserved unwavering devotion.
Though Atticus had incredible strength as a Vampire, he proved to be no danger to anyone.
No temper that anyone had ever seen, even in the most heated situations, and regardless of the circumstance, he always measured his strength accordingly.
Atticus followed him into the central hallway and opened the coat closet across from the staircase. “This is for the little miss.” He twirled a box in his hands. “I know how she likes cat ears. These are headphones she can connect to the television or listen to music on. The ears light up.”
Salem took the box. “You should give them to her.”
“She’s not keen on Vampires. If you had been there the night we found her, you would’ve seen what those scientists put her through.
” He tucked his hands beneath his armpits and turned his gaze up the staircase.
“She comes out when everyone’s away or swimming at the stream, but I suspect she’s a night owl.
Sometimes when I come in the house after everyone’s asleep, I hear the soft pad of her socks against the floor. ”
“How do you know it’s her?”
A smile touched his lips, and Atticus clasped his hands in front of him. “Because a Vampire recognizes the sound of everyone’s heartbeat and breathing. She’s surreptitious. I’ve seen her go on explorations around the property.”
“Alone?”
“If Catcher doesn’t follow her, I shadow walk and stay close.”
Salem didn’t understand why she would go out at night. “What does she do?”
“Walks. She has a few places she likes to lie down and stargaze. You can hardly fault her for that. She stays in the territory, but who knows when else she might be sneaking out when I’m at work?
I worry about her. It’s been a year now.
That’s a blink of an eye for me, but it’s a long passing for a child. ”
Montana sidled up to the conversation. “You talkin’ about Cleo?”
They nodded.
Montana leaned his shoulder against the wall and folded his arms. “What’s strange is Catcher isn’t acting as her watchdog. He looked after Robyn when she was a teenager, so it should be second nature.”
Salem thought about how the girl gravitated toward Krys.
He was the only one she trusted, perhaps because he saved her from burning in a fire.
Salem had seen how trauma affected people, how the memories lived inside them like an intrinsic part of their DNA.
While Krys hardly seemed the type to invest his time in anyone, let alone a child, he looked after her, made sure she ate, and was always doing things for her.
Maybe Catcher wasn’t assuming the watchdog position for that reason.
Atticus shook his head. “She’ll only be a child for a few years more. It’s unfair to wait for a relative to claim her. She needs the stability of a permanent home.”
“She might be a foundling,” Salem offered.
“So perhaps she never had a home to begin with. Cleo has no memory of life before the lab. Who’s to say she wasn’t living on the streets as an orphan?
The documents were destroyed in the fire, though I doubt they kept any personal information that would have been incriminating.
When I worked in the lab, they didn’t even document their names.
To my knowledge, the guards didn’t make a habit of scrubbing their memories, but after I freed Joy and the others, they obviously changed their process. ”
Atticus pushed up his sleeves. “The other captives weren’t scrubbed like she was. They knew their names and remembered what happened before they were taken.”
“She’s a kid,” Montana pointed out. “What they were doing was illegal, but doing that to a child? Hell, they signed their own death warrants. I bet they gave her a memory wipe so if she did escape, she wouldn’t know where to go. Maybe it was also easier to control her.”
“We never expected to find a child,” Atticus said quietly. “If we can’t locate her family, maybe she should live here.”
Montana rubbed his stubbly jaw. “Yeah, but say she joins the pack and gets attached to everyone. What if we find her kin and she has to leave the only family she knows? That’s rough for a kid.”
Melody tiptoed in. “What are you boys whispering about? Sounds like drama.”
“Cleo,” Montana informed her.
She tightened her pink ponytail. “Oh. Virgil says she watches TV all night. Did someone complain about the noise? I sleep right through it.”
“You can sleep through a tornado,” Montana said with undisguised amusement. “That TV will rot her brain.”
“I’ve been hearing that for years, and I turned out fine,” she countered. “Anyhow, Virgil said it’s documentaries and educational shows, so at least she’s learning something. He actually told her to play music for a change.”
Montana sighed. “She needs to be outside more.”
“I agree. Kids today aren’t the same because of technology. They’ve got computers, phones, TV, music—what reason does she have to leave the room? Hope and I stayed inside a lot when we were designing, but we also explored the property and went on adventures.”
Atticus chuckled quietly, which didn’t escape Melody’s attention.
She gave him a warning glance. “I’m sure my Aunt Lexi told all kinds of wild stories about me, but half were exaggerations.”
“Does that include the mailman you shot with an arrow?”
“It’s not my fault he was a speeder! I was in the middle of target practice and he drove into my shot. Besides, he was a horse Shifter, so it’s not like a big deal.”
Atticus looked like he was biting his tongue on the rest of the story.
Melody picked at her fingernail polish. “If Cleo’s up all night glued to the set, that explains why she sleeps in.”
Mercy wandered up and put her arms around Salem and Melody. “Y’all forgot to invite me to the gossip session.”
“We’re talking about Cleo,” Melody explained while pushing up the sleeves of her shirt, which featured a skull surrounded by pink flowers.
“That girl needs to go out and have fun with other girls her age.”
Melody frowned. “Every time I head out to Moonglow, I invite her to come with me and pick out new clothes. I thought all teens liked to shop, but she always comes up with an excuse.”
“Maybe you should stop bringing clothes back to her and enabling her reclusive behavior,” Montana suggested.
Melody scoffed. “Would you like me to drag her there, kicking and screaming? She’s a kid, so I’m not going to reprimand her for something that isn’t a big deal.
Hope went through the same thing after a wolf attacked her when we were kids.
It took time, but I eventually got her to go out in public more.
She was nervous around people for a long time, especially Shifters. You can’t slap a Band-Aid on trauma.”
Mercy turned her gaze up to Salem, her big eyes glittering with concern. “She eats like a bird.”